Poisoned
by xLonelyDreamerx
Summary: At the beginning of college, Bella is determined to leave all the bad memories behind and start fresh. When she meets the oddly charming Riley Bella thinks there's hope on the horizon. However, there's something more than meets the eye in Riley Biers. "Just when you think you've hit rock bottom, you realise you're standing on another trapdoor. -AU during New Moon, [E/B]
1. Prologue

**Poisoned**

 _Poison:  
a substance that is capable of causing the illness or death of a living organism when introduced or absorbed._

" _Robert wanted to be loved. My brother Tyrion has the same disease. Do you want to be loved, Sansa?"  
"Everyone wants to be loved."  
"I see flowering hasn't made you any brighter," said Cersei. "Sansa, permit me to share a bit of womanly wisdom with you on this very special day. Love is poison. A sweet poison, yes, but it will kill you all the same."_

― _George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings_

She's buried beneath the heavy snow, down on top of the hills, her grave marked with a flat piece of wood carved with her name.

The letter "B" being the only one beautifully made, the closest to calligraphy. There's nothing. Nothing else other than a piece of clothe tied tightly on the wood. She didn't want to draw attention to her resting place, but she couldn't leave her with nothing. Not when she deserved the world.

She'll sleep peacefully there, no one to disturb her, no sound but the wind and the howling of wolves.

 **#**

 _One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret_ …

She's stuck at the end, she can't finish it. Her head hurts and it's filled with sounds, her mouth thick with blood. _Seven for a secret_ \- She can see two magpies on the branch – they're laughing, mocking her with their cold judgmental eyes.

She can hear a movement but it's not the birds, something else. It's someone else. Someone is speaking to her. _Look what you've done…_

 **#**

The girl's skull has been smashed, probably with a rock that much has been obvious. _Murder. It's a murder_. The body has been most likely dug out by the animals; few chunks of the flesh are gone, while most of it has rotten.

He wants to vomit. It's almost there. He can feel it in the back of his throat but he swallows down hard with determination.

As he shouts for the others to come he half wonders how he's going to tell the Chief about it; he knows he cannot avoid it – he's the one who found her body so _he_ should be the one to tell him, but, _still_ -

A parent should never bury his child

* * *

 _Against all good sense, I've started a new story despite having five unfinished ones. But I swear this idea nagged at me every time I saw anything Twilight-related. So, how do you like the prologue so far? I'm a little unsure about the interest in this one because it has a character arc so I'll probably wait and see the response before deciding whether or not to continue it here. Thanks for reading my nervous ramblings. It's my first story in this fandom_


	2. Bella I

With her eyes shut, Bella sighs almost sadly as she allows herself to be swept up into Charlie's arms; she feels like she's six years old all over again; the feeling of seeing her father after months of being separated from him is almost overwhelming. A part of her wants to tell the taxi driver to go away and just continue living with Charlie.

It was unfair to go just when things were settled. But Charlie isn't going to be alone, he's got a new wife and two new children, and they're more of a family that he and her ever was.

"You'll come here whenever you want," Her father's voice pulls her out of her thoughts. "This is your home too, kiddo."

She nods and let him go. "I know"

Surprisingly, and out of character one might say Charlie takes her face in his hands and forces her to look into his eyes.

"Don't think I don't know what you're doing. You have a tender heart, just like your mother did in your age. I see so much of her in you."

Bella looks at him wide-eyed, clearly shocked by his lovely words; usually – if not most of the time – she was compared to Charlie, she looked like Charlie, she acted like Charlie, she was Charlie's little girl.

Never her mother's

Never Renée's

He continues, "But no matter who comes and goes in our lives, I will always be your father, and you will always be my daughter."

Charlie was never comfortable with expressing himself – something which she had inherited from him, so to hear him opening up to her that way touched her deeply.

A part of her wonders what Sue must have told him last night to get him to be so expressive.

Charlie move back to allow Sue and their connection breaks. Charlie's wife hugs her tightly, "Travel safe, sweetheart."

Bella smiles at her warmly and promises with a nod, "Don't worry, I'll be fine."

"As for Leah-"

"It's okay," she says lowly, not wanting for Charlie to hear. "It's clear how she feels"

That obviously doesn't make Sue feel any better judging from the sad look on her face. "Leah is a good girl, she just-"

"Doesn't like me," Bella finishes the sentence for her. While Seth wasn't too keen on with the new addiction to his home, he had settled in within the first few days. On the other hand Leah didn't keep her opinions to herself and she made clear how much she hated them and the situation. Any rare moment of peace with Leah Clearwater in their home could be blamed entirely to Sue who was the undisputed matriarch of the new-found family.

"She'll come around," Sue promises with determination written in her dark eyes and Bella has to hold back a smile at the thought of Leah getting lectured from her mother for what seemed like the hundredth time. Only Sue could tame the she-wolf.

"How many things did you get inside, Bells!" Charlie complains from afar as he starts helping the taxi driver with lifting her luggage.

"I'm a girl, dad!" Bella shouts back with a false glare, "I want to be 100% comfortable!"

Sue agrees from beside her, "Better have it all, than not having nothing."

" _Bella_!"

A familiar boyish voice calls her enthusiastically and the next thing she knows Bella is being crashed into pleasant warmth.

"I got here as soon as I could!"

He pants next to her ear without letting her go and she only manages to say four words before she starts to struggle, "You're…killing...me"

He immediately lets her go, "Sorry," He says with an apologetic grin, running his hand through his hair. "I didn't want you to leave before I got to say goodbye."

Seth was certainly the next person she'd miss the most, next to Charlie. _Perhaps even more than Charlie._ In the chaos she had found when she moved in La Push, Seth was a bright sun in her world of gray. "I'm moving to Seattle, Seth, not to England." Her voice cracked a bit but she'll blame their goodbyes for making her emotional.

"It feels like it," He complains with a pout, making him look even younger "I'll miss you, Bella. If you get into any trouble call me to take care of it." He straightens up, raising his chin with a stern look to make himself look more 'manly'

Bella didn't bother hiding her amusement this time as she raffled his hair, "My knight" she coos, enjoying his flashy cheeks.

"I'm serious!"

Her face softens and reassures him, "I know"

Her eyes travel up on the window where she can see Leah's shadow watching them.

"She'll miss you too, you know."

Bella can't help but look at him funny; only the concept of Leah missing anyone – least of all, her – is enough to make her burst laughing. "Seth, it's _Leah_ "

Seth has a knowing smile but doesn't say anything else. Bella kisses him on the cheek, one last time but not without reminding him not to stay late every night with Sam's gang; he laughs at that and she moves on to her father who looks at the verge of crying. She hugs him one last time tightly before thanking him.

Charlie looks at her puzzled, "For what?"

The memory of last September flashes her mind; her depression, the nightmares, Edward's voice, Jake's betrayal, her fights with Charlie over Sue, his wedding…

She shrugs, "For being an amazing dad."

Charlie's cheeks flashes a bright pink color and he avoids meeting her gaze; any confidence from before was gone. "I didn't do anything, Bells"

She knows that isn't true but she doesn't bother telling him anything else; they both aren't people of too many words.

She can't help but look through the window as soon as she enters inside the taxi; Charlie is still there with an arm wrapped around Sue and with Seth waving at her excitedly, and even when the car speeds up, she can still feel Leah's eyes forever glued in her back.

For some reason, she feels like the little girl who hated coming to Forks for summer holidays; happy to finally leave Forks, but sad for leaving her father behind.

Perhaps she hasn't grown much at all

Four hours later, she's in Seattle, away from the reservation, and away from Fork

And suddenly, a weight is off her shoulders


	3. Letter I

_When you first disappeared, your mother warned me that finding out exactly what had happened to you would be worse than never knowing. We argued about this constantly because arguing was the only thing that kept us going at the time._

" _Knowing the details won't make it any easier, " She warned me. "The details will tear you apart."_

 _I was a man of the law. Believed in justice and I needed facts. Whether I wanted to or not, my mind would not stop generating hypotheses: Abducted. Raped. Defiled._

 _Rebellious._

 _That was the investigator's theory from Seattle, or at least his excuse when I demanded answers he could not give._

 _I've been in this department for years so I won't let a mere boy who probably has never even seen a dead cat order me to step back and wait._

 _Your mother and I had always been secretly pleased that you were so headstrong and mature for your age. So perhaps this is one of your firsts; perhaps you needed a break from everyone and everything, because in the end of the day you were like any other girl. A week would pass, a month, maybe a year, and you would come back into our lives offering a half-hearted apology about a boy you'd followed or a friend you'd joined on a trip across the ocean._

 _You weren't eighteen years old._

 _Legally, you did not belong to us anymore. You belonged to yourself. You belonged to the world._

 _Still, I organised search parties. Sue and I kept calling hospitals and other police stations near Seattle and homeless shelters. We posted fliers around town. We knocked on doors. We talked to your friends. We checked abandoned buildings and burned-out houses on the bad side of town._

 _Your mother even hired a private detective who took half of her savings and a psychic who took most of the rest. Phil appealed to the media, though the media lost interest when there were no salacious details to breathlessly report._

 _This is what we knew: You were in a bar to celebrate your scholarship. You didn't drink any more than usual. You told your friends that you weren't feeling well and that you were going to walk home and that was the last time anyone ever reported seeing you._

 _Over the years, there were many false confessions. Sadists rallied around the mystery of where you'd gone. They provided details that could not be proven, leads that could not be followed. At least they were honest when they were caught out._

 _I understand why your mother gave up. Or at least had to appear to. She had a new life—the two of you had lost in touch when you decided to stay close to Forks and perhaps a part of her will never forgive you for that. Your mother was always the kind of woman who thought that ignoring the problem would probably make it go away. Poor Phil had heard the yelling of his lifetime when he argued with her. (I can't say I wasn't pleased). Last, I heard they were adopting a dog (as if that would fill the void you left)_

 _Everything is quiet at home; Leah, Sue, Seth. I'm mostly locked in your bedroom examining every single clue I've gathered. Leah is sensible and I'm glad she's not hanging out with the kind of girls who would talk her into doing things she should not do. Like sneak into a bar to hear music and never come home again._

 _On the day I decided to officially handle the case by myself, your mother told me over the phone that her only hope was that one day we would find your body. That was what she clung to, the idea that one day, eventually, we could lay you down in your final resting place._

 _This was a time when the pendulum of hope still swung back and forth between us_

 _I remember clearly the day I lost my hope. I was returning from the station (it was before I decided to quit) and as I was walking down the road I heard a small whine from an abandoned dog._

 _The creature was pitiful, obviously abused. His fur was ashen from the elements., and there were hot spots on his bare skin where he'd scratched too much or licked too much or done the things dogs try to do when they are left alone to soothe themselves._

 _I remembered the times you had begged separately your mother and I to buy you a dog. (Would you have stayed with the dog instead of going out that night if I had complied with your wishes years ago?) and I spent some time with him to let him know he was safe._

 _I let him lick the back of my hand. I let him get used to my scent. After he calmed, I took him to a vet who examined him; he was an older dog, but until recently, his teeth had been well kept. A surgical scar indicated that at some point an injured knee had been carefully and expensively repaired. The doctor's words, not mine_

 _The obvious abuse the animal suffered had not yet worked its way into his muscle memory. As I waited for the doctor to return, I put my hand to his face, the weight of his head fell into the palm of my hand, and I looked into the dog's woeful eyes and my mind filled in details from this poor creature's life. I had no way of knowing the truth, but my heart understood this was what had happened: He had not been abandoned. He had wandered off or slipped his leash. His owners had gone to the store or left for vacation and somehow—a gate accidentally left open, a fence jumped, a door left ajar by a well-meaning house-sitter— this beloved creature had found himself walking the streets with no sense of which direction would take him back home. And a group of kids or an unspeakable monster or a combination of all had found this dog and turned him from an adored pet into a hunted beast._

 _Like any other cop, it was easy to make the connection, but that was the first time – since the night you disappeared that I had ever made the connection between the horrible things people do to animals and the even more horrific things they do to other human beings._

 _Here was how a chain ripped flesh._

 _Here is what a human being looked like when they wandered off into a world that did not cherish them, did not love them, did not ever want them to go home._

 _Your mother was right._

 _The details tore me apart_


End file.
